This article aims to correct this site’s incorrect assumption that there are no chav towns in the East Midlands! There is no topic heading of that name, anyway.
Loughborough was, not long ago, a sizeable yet not too big, industrial yet beautifully-situated, town fairly equidistant between Leicester, Nottingham and Derby.
Loughborough’s biggest council estate had been built as a model estate in the 1920s.
Then came the expansion of the university. And McDonald’s. And the Nova.
And then Marks & Spencer’s, British Rail, you name it, stopped buying British and the factories closed.
Putting decent people out of work.
And providing sites for chav flats.
One factory which specialised in quality coachbuilding, the Willowbrook, has now suffered the ignominy of becoming the site of a retail park.
With a Halfords where a steady stream of chavs come in to inquire about how to lower a Fiesta.
With baseball caps back to front, the chavs used to race round the Willowbrook in their ancient small cars. They didn’t know why it was called that. They didn’t even know THAT it was called that(!)
Until the police stepped in and had speed cliffs installed.
Since then you don’t see so many dark blue and bottle green Novas there with darkened windows and resprayed Polypipe (R) sill extensions…
Chavs in Loughborough often travel round by pushbike. For this reason, there are many bike lanes painted on the roads taking up useful roadspace. Which is why, when you stop on the pavement to look at the painted bike markings on the road, you run the risk of a chav cannoning into you riding his pushbike on the pavement, fake jewellery a-swinging. There’s no way he could use the brakes (even if they were working) as he is talking on his mobile phone.
It becomes a lottery for pedestrians at night, when chav bikes speed along the pavements without lights.
Loughborough used to be a town with one pub for every 800 inhabitants. Now it seems it has two pubs for 20,000 students.
The student chav community is like a vast bloated leech draining the life out of Loughborough. There is not one pub left in the market place now but hordes of white-T-shirted chavbeest stagger round the darkened centre at night, looking for a place they can get WKD blue alcopops or cider with ice in it.
The Ashby Road which leads from town to the university has so many kebab shops that the Americans are set to invade it soon.
And no-one would want to have to clean up on a Sunday morning!
Student chavs tend to dawdle in packs at the beginning of the “academic” year, as they have never learnt any road sense.
Then, they will crash into your car on their pushbikes, as they still have not learnt any road sense.
Then, they get their first Nova or Paxo, and still have no road sense.
Then, as the university has expanded at a vast rate in recent years, they go and rent a semi, abandon their chavvy cars everywhere and start giving the house some active neglect. They have a great sports centre, so play football in the street where they can damage ordinary people’s property and cars.
Where to meet a chav? The nightspots seem like a good idea, but if you draw a blank there and at McDonald’s, there’s always outside the magistrate’s court on Woodgate where all the smokers lounge, overlooking the site of a pleasant Italian restaurant which has been knocked down to build 100 chav flats!
I totally 100% agree with you. Loughborough is a dump, however personally I don’t think it is as gloomy and miserable as Coalville which is full of chavs. However I lived in Loughborough from when I was born until 2009 and I can’t stand the place. Everything you have said is true. I refuse to live in Loughborough now.
Firstly, theres no such thing as a ‘student chav’. All the chavs are locals who dislike students and vice versa. Loughborough is a really small town and a bit of a dump. Student life in lougborough is a lot of fun, given there are thousands of students all living close to together. There is bit of girl/boy ratio issue at uni but it really isnt that bad and any guy that complains clearly has no chat with women anyway. As a student, locals cause no problems. The 2 groups rarely mix even on nights out in town.
I go to Loughborough Univesity, and my god this town is SHIT. Maybe having lived in Barcelona has spoiled me, but if I could go back I’d never come here again, EVER.
The town has little to nothing to offer. The student union is the best night out, and it gets very old very fast. When Echos is considered a good club you know you’re in trouble; can’t even walk through it without your shoes turning permanently black/shit coloured :S
The campus is admittedly very nice, and there are a bunch of friendly students, but in my experience a lot of them are wankers (unless you are involved in rugby in which case there is mutual love). I’ve never seen a more superficial place in my life. Ugly muppets with big biceps are the most popular, doing reasonably considering the incredibly poor girl:guy ratio (20+ guys in good shape to every girl you’d look twice at?), then the normal sized guys seem to get left behind no matter how handsome or good their game is. Who needs a face when you’re on the rugby team?
If you like drum and bass like myself, don’t expect to have a good night out here either. Never have I heard cheesy music like in the student union… S club seven is ok to play every other night in fusion apparently! And the djs don’t even mix tunes, it’s like a 4 year old with an ipod connected to the speakers…
The only good thing about this place is how cheap it is to get inappropriately drunk, which is 100% necessary to detach yourself from the reality that is Loughborough.
Loughborough has its fair share of chavs and a fairly dodgy council estate, but I think it’s a little extreme to call it Chav Central! As for student chavs, they are virtually non-existant (chavs don’t do education) so I’m not sure where the OP got their information from.
I am from Loughborough and therefore biased. I also now live in London so obviously it wasn’t an amazing place to live. But the place is definitely not over run with chavs and has some pretty good things going for it.
Not the worse place to live by a country mile!
Loughborough is pretty average all round. It’s considered to be a good university by employers but the town itself leaves a lot to be desired. Yes students get out of hand and are rude, loud and obnoxious but I think the town chavs are worse personally – having had to live next to one for 2 years. That said, I steer clear of the ‘golden triangle’ as it’s full of students and I’d never get any sleep. There are a couple of problem areas in Loughborough. The worst being the area up by the Phantom, and NE of that. There’s always a congregation of chavs around Mac Ds of course – but that’s every town, isn’t it? The other area to avoid is the area on the north side over the road, on the other side from the university library. I had a friend at university there who delivered pizzas and that was one area they didn’t deliver to, for fear of mugging. Also, some of the chavs there liked to shoot at passing buses with air rifles.
Who owns ‘brian’s'? Brian’s what?
And how could they make there way? I know they could make their way, but you’ve lost me now Sophie.
A few strategically placed comma’s would help too.
Not from Loughborough, are you? ;-p
I think you have some facts wrong here. You seem to mainly assume that all the chavs are student at the university but i doubt that very much (most of the chavs will not actually own the brians to make it that far in the education system) they may infact come from Loughborough college if they have managed to make it onto the beauty course or builders course that they offer there for no GCSEs needed entry requirements.
Most of the chavs you see in Loughborough have all made there way from the Chavhole that is Shelthorpe (plus some of the smaller council estate surrounding) and can ususally be seen hovering/ hanging around near the Job Centre and Mcdonalds many even venturing in the centre for the weekly shop lifting antics or to one of the cheap pubs that allow children.